Pedal Steel Music

Hi guys and gals,

How much fun is it just doing something all by yourself?

Have you ever noticed that the more people there are enjoying something, the more fun you seem to have? Did you ever tell somebody what a great turnout there was at a sports event, a concert or even bragged about how many people showed up for so and so’s party? There’s a moral here and I’m getting at something very important. It is human nature to enjoy things more if there are more people enjoying these things at the same time. How would you like to go to a big steel guitar show and only have 3 or 4 people show up? Ever noticed how much more successful something like a car club is if it has more members? The sure death of any club, interest or organization is if there aren’t enough people to enjoy it.

This is exactly why we need to encourage others to enjoy the things we love. Not only are we giving them the gift of the love of our great instrument which we have every right to feel good about, but we also can enjoy the instrument better ourselves if we have many more people to share it with.

I have pretty well spent my life encouraging and promoting the love of steel guitar. Looking at where steel guitar was 50 years ago, where less than 1% of the population knew what it was and a good percentage of this 1% cared very little about it. And now, look where steel guitar is. In every field of music, all over television and radio and every teenager in the world at least knows what it looks like. This has made me appreciate and love steel guitar even more and it should you also. Now here’s what I’m really driving at. Attend steel guitar shows, encourage your lead guitar buddies and other musicians to understand and love your instrument and what you’re doing with it. Put on shows of your own and learn to play the instrument better and better and don’t be prejudiced against any kind of music that we can get steel guitar into. The more of us there are to love it, the more we’re going to love it and the more people are going to understand us and our love for it.

As an example of my own efforts beyond what you’re seeing from me through my store, educational tapes and personal performances, I am pushing to get steel guitar into new venues all the time. On of my recent endeavors is to join up with two of the greatest steel players in the world … Mr. John Hughey and Mr. Doug Jernigan … to do a steel guitar exhibition show at one of the most famous music clubs in the world, the famous Bluebird Café in Nashville. This intimate club has been used for many years as a showcase lounge for Nashville’s newest artists, Nashville’s greatest songwriters and talent that has excelled to the top of the music industry. Steel guitar has never before been featured as it’s primary draw. Doug, John and I are about to change all that on September 15^th when we do the first Bluebird steel guitar in-the-round show. We will be facing each other in the middle of the audience in a setting akin to playing in your living room. We will be accompanied only by two of Nashville’s finest musicians … Charlie Chadwick on upright bass and Kenny Malone on snare and hi-hat. These two well-respected musicians have set the standard for jazz and country backup in Nashville for 30 years. We are negotiating to have it broadcast live on WSM-AM radio. This will be a very quiet, easily heard performance in a smoke-free environment with great food. It will also be video taped for future broadcast and enjoyment. This is an event you should not miss if at all possible and is another significant step forward in exposing steel guitar to those that care but may not have noticed.

I have also finished Volume Two in my Beginner’s Series showing you how to play “Please Release Me” and “Amazing Grace” the way I did on my CDs. Step by step, note by note, knee by knee and lever by lever. You don’t have to sound like a beginner just because you are one. With my beginner’s series, you can go straight to playing and sounding like an advanced player … one song at a time.

As always, my mailing list gets the discount price. You have to order from the hidden mailing list sale page below. Do not order from the video page on the website because you will pay full price if you do. I repeat, you have to order from the hidden mailing list sale page to get the mailing list discount price.

www.steelguitar.net/sale.html

When you get to the page, it’s the link at the top of the list. All of the other videos are there as well for anyone with an incomplete collection.

Your buddy,

Bobbe

www.steelguitar.net

sales@steelguitar.net

Hi guys and gals,

I want to pass on a few of the comments I got from the last newsletter. In the last newsletter, I was talking about how healthy the steel guitar community is becoming in the United States but are you aware of how much it is growing in the rest of the world. It’s growing even faster in the European countries than it is here and a lot of the credit goes to steel guitar ambassadors such as Heiko Aehle and Hermann Lammers Meyer in Germany and Cor Jr. in the Netherlands

We’re getting an awful lot of steel guitar inquiries from areas that used to be behind the Iron Curtain such as Yugoslavia, Croatia, Latvia, Rumania, Poland etc.

The internet, satellite radio and television are helping fan the flames of love for this instrument.

Awareness and appreciation of the steel guitar is growing around the world. Some excellent examples of this are worth checking out …

www.steelguitar.de

http://www.hermannlammersmeyer.de/

http://steelguitars.pagina.nl

www.harriebrekelmans.com

www.c-audio.nl

www.bavaria-steelguitar.de

I’m always working to improve the quality of the videos and I learn something new each time I do one, so expect better and better videos the further we go. I have several more videos planned that you have asked me to do such as the remedy to a problem we all have in bands today … and that is what to play on songs that seem to have no rules such as old and new rock’n’roll tunes. What do you play on Johnny B. Goode, Blue Suede Shoes, Blue Moon Of Kentucky, Green Onions, Knock On Wood, I Feel Good. Even though steel guitar isn’t on the original records, you are almost always asked to play something on these tunes. I’m here to show you how to make the guitar player look bad.

I’ve had so many requests for this information that this will be one of the next videos I make along with a non-pedal steel guitar video tab course. Also, a couple of videos showing C6th “made-easy” with great chord progressions and how to learn them quickly and easily.

My videos are about half the price of the competition … does this save you money? No way … you get twice as many videos for the same money LOL! As long as you keep asking for them, I’ll keep making them.

Many of you have asked about videos that you missed so I put them all on the mailing list members only sale page at … www.steelguitar.net/sale.html … so if you missed any, you can pick them up there at the discounted price I give to mailing list members. Remember to order from the link and not from the website because the website has the regular price and not the discount price … if you want the discount price, you have to follow the link.

Keep emailing me because remember, my videos are driven by what you ask me for.

Your buddy,

Bobbe

Hi guys and gals,

This weeks newsletter is a commentary rather than a tip.

More and more I am seeing a tremendous explosion in the appreciation and love of our beloved instrument. New steel guitar fans are jumping on the bandwagon by the minute. People that had no idea what steel guitar was five years ago have found out what that beautiful sound is because of country music videos, rock n roll bands playing live whose lead guitarists have realized the potential of the instrument, the hundreds of steel guitar shows that go on yearly around the world and so on.

It wasn’t but ten years ago that you could carry a steel guitar down the street, out of it’s case and people would look at it and say “What’s that?”. Now the question is, “What brand is it?” or “I know what that is, do you know John Hughey?” Look at some of the people who have played steel guitar and some of the places steel guitar has been played. For instance, Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead, Bobby Black with Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen, Paul Franklin with Mark Knopler in Dire Straits, Rusty Young with Poco, Lovin’ Spoonful’s “Nashville Cats”, Buffalo Springfield’s “Teach Your Children” plus players like Sneaky Pete and Red Rhodes have introduced steel guitar to thousands and thousands of rock’n’roll fans who would have never known what it was. Yes sir, steel guitar is enjoying a tremendous explosion in popularity from the way I see it.

Another classical example of a new door opening is Robert Randolph, a 21 year old black Gospel steel guitarist that I have known and encouraged since he was 12 years old who has now been on every major television show, including David Letterman, The Today Show and is doing many live shows the world over as a steel guitar instrumentalist. Notice I haven’t even mentioned country music here which is technically where steel guitar came from in the first place. If country music would go away tomorrow, steel guitar would still be here and continue to grow. Everybody that hears it loves it. All steel guitar related businesses are doing well, are successful and more people seem to be getting into it all the time.

Are you aware of where the value of used steel guitars is going? This is proof of everything I’ve said. I remember accordions selling for $3500. new, in the fifties and sixties. These instruments are not worth the space they take up in the closet today. However, steel guitars of the era are now collectors items worth many times what they sold for as are quality lead guitars from the same era.

The moral of this newsletter edition is … be proud of yourself as a steel player and encourage others to join us in our steel guitar world. After all, we are all ambassadors of the steel guitar and should encourage guitar playing friends and others to join our ranks so that our community continues to grow.

Your buddy,

Bobbe

P.S. Remind your guitar playing friends that if they can play guitar, they’re half way to steel guitar.